Fort Stevens State Park, a Great Park for Bikes (and Strollers)

Fort Stevens State Park has about eight miles of paved bike paths.

Most of the park is covered with beautiful old woods and the paths wind through them.

There are two…

tunnels and

a bridge to minimize at grade crossings over park roads.

I pushed Matey in the stroller two miles up…

to the old fort where Bud met us. We walked around the gun emplacements,

peering down from the walls into where the huge guns sat.

We are right at the mouth of the Columbia River…

and there were some nice views across the river.

The next day Bud met us at the beach by the wreck of the Iredale. This British sailing ship has been stuck in the sand here since 1906. Matey couldn’t walk in the deep sand so we didn’t go down there.

We loaded the stroller into the truck and drove north a couple of miles to the South Jetty. This was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers to decrease shoaling which made the mouth of the Columbia River treacherous for ships. It took 10 years to build, is made of about 9 million tons of boulders and extends 7 miles into the ocean.

Originally completed in 1895 it was extended over two miles to its present length from 1905 to 1913.

There are pilings from old trestles still visible. These supported a rail line from the fort to the ocean that was used to build and repair the jetty. Two sets of trestles were built, but they haven’t been used since the 1940’s.

From the jetty the road curved inland and ended at a beach on the Columbia River.

On the way back Bud dropped Matey, the stroller and me off at Battery Russell. Built in the early 1900’s this battery was attacked by a Japanese submarine in World War II, the only place in the continental U.S. to be attacked in that war. We walked the paths back to the camper from there.

Matey and I took several long walks on the miles of bike paths.

Close to the often foggy shore the woods are shrouded with moss. What a contrast to the red desert rocks of Utah!

On our last walk I took him out the beach access road. This time I parked the stroller and carried him across the soft sand.

I remembered this photo I took in 2014 when we first got Matey and took him to the beach in Galveston. He was four years old.

He can’t run any more but he still likes the beach.